The SEA is Ours is a steampunk anthology focusing on steampunk coming from South East Asia. A Rosarium project, the fundraiser campaign for this project surpassed its original goal and funded at 126% on the 29th of October this year.

I asked four authors who participated in this project to join me on the blog for a conversation focusing on the challenges South East Asian writers face. Joining me in this conversation are Paolo Chikiamco of Rocket Kapre, Dean Alfaro (also known as the father of Philippine Speculative Fiction), Kate Osias (Filipina writer), and Alessa Hinlo.

Here is the first part of our conversation. Please keep an eye out for the next part in this conversation series.

I love that while we are writers with Filipino roots, we all have come to genre from different walks of life and through different pathways. Would you like to share some of your backstory, how did you come into genre and specifically how did you become aware of publishing as a science fiction and fantasy writer? Would you like to share/talk about some of your gateway authors into genre.

Paolo Chikiamco:

Growing up, almost every story I read was either a science fiction or fantasy story, whether presented in the form of a novel or a comic, a show or a game. In the eighties and early nineties, science fiction and fantasy meant imported stories, usually from the West, with the notable exception of games and anime from Japan. The first novel I ever finished was part of a series (“The Guardians of the Flame” by the late Joel Rosenberg) and I quickly devoured that and moved on to my next series (The “Belgariad” and “Mallorean” quintets from the late David Eddings)… I actually don’t think I read a stand-alone novel until I’d devoured at least nine multi-book series from the likes of Terry Brooks, Piers Anthony, and the (now sadly out of canon) Star Wars Expanded Universe. I don’t think I’ve ever lost my preference for long stories and exhaustive world building as a reader and a writer both… I think my editors will attest to that.

The first time I ever read a genre work by a Filipino author was Arnold Arre’s “The Mythology Class” and it really opened my eyes, not only with regard to Philippine Mythology (which has become a passion of mine) but also to the idea that it was possible for people like me to write and publish the kinds of stories I loved to read. Of course, at the time I thought this was just comics, and while I dabbled in illustration, I knew I didn’t have the drive to develop that talent to the point I could make my own comics.

I was always fairly decent at writing though (or so I thought to myself). There wasn’t much of a local genre industry for me to aspire to, at least that I was aware of, but luckily the Internet became readily available in Manila soon after I became interested in writing my own stories — or maybe having the Internet would have inevitably led me to the realization that I could make my own stories. I cut my genre-writing teeth on online roleplaying games (both the play-by-post and play-by-email varieties) and fanfiction, particularly those fandoms with a healthy environment of critical feedback (that was the Evangelion fandom at the time).

I first became aware that there were Filipinos writing and publishing (prose) speculative fiction when I ran across two calls for submission: one for “A Time for Dragons” (edited by Vin Simbulan) and one for “The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories” (edited by Kenneth Yu). I was in Law School at the time, but the chance to be able to be a part of a Philippine genre publication was too enticing to pass up. My stories were accepted, and in the process of dealing with the editors, I discovered the Metro Manila based community of spec fic writers, particularly Dean and Niiki and the LitCritters, and the annual Philippine Speculative Fiction anthology (which was already on the fourth volume by then, and which had slipped under my radar entirely — one of the banes of the Filipiniana ghetto). They were very welcoming, and encouraged me even when my ambitions outstripped my resume. When I started up Rocket Kapre I had, what, three published stories at the time, and zero editing experience, but the community was very supportive: a few of the more experienced writers took me out to dinner and told me what I should expect as a new editor, how to deal with any pushback from self-proclaimed gatekeepers, and basically just to say that they had my back.

Dean Alfar:

My mother opened the trapdoor under feet by providing a diet of fairy tales and mythology books when I was learning how to read. I fell happily into other worlds, and so fantasy was my first and greatest love among the genres. Later, that expanded to include horror, scifi, whodunits, and more as I grew older: comics, AD&D rulebooks and novels, and finally magical realism when I was in college. I remember when I was young being frustrated by the selections at the local bookstore and vowing that one day I’d write my stories. There were few Filipino authored works of interest to me (no high fantasy!), but Philippine mythology and especially folklore were things I cherished when I came upon them (rarely were they interestingly written). In university, I began to write – plays first, then fiction. I got stories published in local magazines, won a few prizes, and I thought that was that. I learned to write by reading and writing. I was not part of academe, though later my work would win my fellowships in various national-level writing workshops.

Until I was inspired by Christopher Barzak’s “Plenty” in the Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror. I loved it and saw it was published in Strange Horizons, an online venue that seemed less impossible to submit to than the print magazines. I submitted “The Kite of Stars” and made my first professional sale in 2003. Later, it was reprinted in YBF&H – which rocked my world. It showed me that it was possible for someone like me – a maverick, non-academic, non-white person to get published abroad. And if it was possible for me, then it was therefore possible for other Filipinos.

From there, I began the Philippine Speculative Fiction annuals, which are meant to help create space for speculative fiction in our country. I paid for everything out of pocket, as an independent print publisher, finally making the switch to digital format with Volume 6 of the series. I learned the ropes by doing things mtself. I began as the sole editor of the series, then was later joined by Nikki Alfar, and later (after we instituted rotating editors to prevent only a particular aesthetics or poetics from determining what was published) by Kate Osias, Alexander Osias, Vincent Simbulan, Andrew Drilon, and Charles Tan. I’m happy to share the fact that we have published many first time authors, as well as authors who would later write more and more and get published in other venues. Since 2005, we have published 11 volumes (10 annuals plus a “Best of Philippine Speculative Fiction”).

We also founded the LitCritters, which functioned as a form of workshop for speculative fiction authors. We have always been open and supportive of the writers of our genres, though this workshop has not been held with regularity in the past couple of years.

Oh – and as a spec fic author, my modern gateway authors into the kind of fiction I like to read and write include Chris Barzak, Jeffrey Ford, Kelly Link, Ted Kosmatka, and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Kate Osias:

I was fortunate to grow up in a family who had a healthy respect for fiction. (As an aside, my father chose my nickname from his favorite Sydney Sheldon book, Master of the Game.) To top it off, I went to a school that believed passionately in literature. Between my family and school, I had access to Sidney Sheldon, Robert Ludlum, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Shakespeare, Nick Joaquin and Ayn Rand, just to name a few. And because my family believed reading was important regardless of genre or topic, they also allowed me to buy all the Nancy Drews, and Sweet Valley Twins/Highs, Goosebumps, and fantasy novels that caught my fancy. I never actively labelled my choices as ‘genre’ or not ‘genre’ and, and the authority figures in my life never really made me feel bad about any of my choices. (Although I do know that one of my [Catholic] Lit teachers was mildly distressed that I had read Judith Krantz’s Princess Daisy even before sex was discussed in class.)

I lost ‘literature’ when I got to college, which is my overly dramatic way of saying that there just wasn’t time to indulge in it. Literature wasn’t a pre-requisite for the accountancy course I was taking, and between trying not to fail my major, rebelling, falling in love, and having my heart broken, it was hard to make book browsing a priority.

Fast forward to several years later. My then boyfriend (now husband), Alex Osias, introduced me to several of his friends. His friends became our friends and we all became so close that, a decade and some odd years later, we still see each other every week. Out of this friendship, the LitCritters was born.

Nearly everything I know about writing and publishing I learned from the LitCritters. The group was led by Dean Alfar, who was already an established writer then. Along with his wife Nikki, two other friends Vincent Simbulan and Andrew Drilon, and of course my husband Alex, we strove to learn the writing craft by reading. Dean took on the huge task of selecting three to four stories every week based on a theme, designing lectures, providing parameters for the occasional writing challenges and moderating the discussions. We had the responsibility of reading the stories, writing critiques (not academic ones, mind you) and essentially stay critically aware even if the story bored us to death.

I can’t emphasize enough how significant the LitCritters was for someone like me, who never really took a formal class on writing or literature, aside from the ones provided by my high school. For one thing, it was really the first time I was immersed in the short story form. For another, this was my formal introduction to Speculative Fiction. Every week for several years, we read stories we liked and hated, and loved, and completely abhorred or were bored with, all while being forced to think critically of what made stories work and what didn’t. Sometimes, we all agreed. Most of the time, we argued and pleaded and got annoyed with each other for obviously not seeing how good/how bad the story was. These discussions, along with Dean’s lectures, are where I learned and defined my own poetics.

Apart from the reading, we also of course did writing challenges. The story I have in The SEA is Ours: Tales of Steampunk Southeast Asia, The Unmaking of the Cuadro Amoros, was actually written because of the steampunk challenge two years ago.

Alessa Hinlo:

My family immigrated to the United States when I was a toddler and during those early years, my grandmother lived with us. She used to be a teacher in the Philippines, so she thought it was very important to instill a love of reading and writing in me. She was my biggest fan. She’d read all the stories I wrote for school and pointed out bits of description and pieces of dialogue she loved. That encouragement was great to have early in life, because neither of my parents are big fiction readers. They approved of my reading habit since it was an “intellectual” hobby and kept me out of trouble, but it wasn’t something they did themselves. As for the writing, they meant well but they just didn’t get it. Writing for school assignments made sense because it was an academic requirement, but writing just because I had a story in my head I wanted to tell? That was harder to understand.

Even though I’ve been devouring books for about as long as I can remember, I’d say that my first introduction to SFF as a genre were the Choose Your Adventure books. I used to eat those books up and whenever I’d see a new one at the library, I’d immediately check it out. They don’t immediately seem like SFF in the traditional sense but if you stop to think about some of those endings — you get turned into a cat, a monster appears and eats you, you walk through a portal into the past — they’re 100% speculative. Maybe only the bad endings were, but since I always ended up choosing those routes, that’s what it ultimately looked like to me. In terms of formative novels, my first true exposure was through teen horror and thrillers via Christopher Pike and Lois Duncan. From there, I’d move on to L.J. Smith — and let me tell you, it was a trip to see Vampire Diaries become a hit TV show when I read those books 20 years ago! Fantasy-wise, a friend introduced me to Mercedes Lackey in middle school and her Valdemar series carried me through my high school years. Those books really captured the angst of a misunderstood, alienated teenager, telepathic white horses and all.

The funny thing about my writing is that although I’ve written stories for a good chunk of my life, I never really considered publishing as a viable thing for the longest time. That’s not something you do as an Asian-American immigrant, and especially not as the child of one. You’re supposed to get a “practical” job. Writing? Publishing? That was for other people, not me. I even say this as someone who wrote her first novel in high school (it was an epic fantasy that was heavily inspired by David Eddings and anime) and had multiple friends who, after having read said novel, asked me if I’d ever thought about pursuing publication. My answer inevitably would be: No, why?

Seeing oneself clearly can pretty hard sometimes.

I made some initial attempts at submitting a few short stories in my 20s. Even wrote a couple novels, but I went through a rough patch and took a break from writing. But things eventually got better, and I tentatively took up writing again about 4 years ago. My short story in The SEA Is Ours is the first short story I’d written and submitted during this “new” time.

Aside from the book reviews and interviews with authors, we’ve decided to include occasional posts wherein we ask those who bring us fantastic works from various disciplines to share their process, challenges and struggles with us.

We hope that we’ll be able to share more of these kinds of posts as time passes.

Today on the book blog, we’re very pleased to have Dean Alfar and Joey Nacino. Dean Francis Alfar’s work has been anthologized in various anthologies, among them The Year’s Best Horror and Fantasy edited by Ellen Datlow, Kelly Link and Gavin Grant and in the first Apex Book of World SF edited by Lavie Tidhar. He is the founder and publisher of the annual Philippine Speculative Fiction series, and is a multiple winner of the Carlos Palanca Literary competition. His short novel, Salamanca, won first place for the Carlos Palanca Novel division in 2005. He is also the author of two short story collections, The Kite of Stars and Other Stories, and the recently released How to Traverse Terra Incognita. He is one of the most prolific and innovative writers of the Filipino Speculative Fiction and a mainstay of the Philippine SFF scene.

Joseph “Joey” Nacino is a writer of speculative fiction. He is a consistent contributor to the Philippine Speculative Fiction annual anthologies and to Philippine Genre Stories. He has edited a number of anthologies among them the e-anthology, Diaspora Ad Astra. The recently released second-world anthology The Farthest Shore was edited by Joseph Nacino and Dean Alfar.

Could you share a little bit about the experience of editing an anthology together. How does it work? Who picks what and who gets the final say?

Dean: This edition of The Farthest Shore prints the digital anthology we put together in 2008 or 2009. Looking back, I must confess my memory is hazy. I recall sitting with Joey as we hammered out details – from the secondary world concept to the list of authors we hoped to solicit stories from. We shared the work, with Joey doing the lion’s share of getting the antho’s online version up, as well as coordinating with UP Press for the print edition. This is one of three books under Estranghero Press, so really, it’s Joey’s show and I’m along for the ride.

Joey: This was the first time Dean and I worked on an anthology though we’ve known each other for some time. The Farthest Shore was the first in the series of online anthologies I wanted to set up. My idea at that time was that I would seek the help of a co-editor for each book of the series: the co-editor would be the vision who would guide the particular anthology while my job would be the series editor (from the online Estranghero Press to the eventually-named Stranger Fiction print series with UP Press).

I was working with Dean at that time and we were shooting the breeze. Naturally I broached the idea to him and he was the first person I thought to ask to help me in setting up the fantasy anthology.

Dean was the one who picked the stories, as well as approved the stories I picked for consideration. (I think. Dean, did I remember this right?) Likewise my own contribution to the antho.

What were things that you considered important in the selection of the stories?

Dean: For me, the story needed to have a strong sense of a secondary world, which is not an easy feat in short fiction – the novelistic space is far kinder, permitting more setting description and development. Second, character was important, it always is for me. And finally, the story had to be well-written.

Choosing to focus on secondary worlds was something that Joey and I felt very strongly about. As Filipino fantasy writers writing in English, we all need to negotiate and come to terms with many internal conflicts, one of the biggest of which is what makes our fantasy stories Filipino? As readers, we all enjoyed and explored the fantasy worlds of Lewis, Tolkien, Silverberg and many other Western authors. So our influences are western in origin. But we are also members of the Filipino and Asian cultural traditions. So why even write western-style fantasy? Why not just write and develop Filipino-informed stories?

As a writer, I do both. My Hinirang-based stories are fantasies but not western-derived. But I also write secondary world fantasies – because I believe I am also a member and part of the greater fantasy traditions, the fantasy worlds of the imagination that know no national boundaries. This is something each Filipino fantasy writer needs to negotiate – the responsibility of writing within our own cultures and embracing the universal aspects of fantasy stories that belong to us all regardless of skin color or background.

Joey: The most important is: it should be a good story. What connotes a good story? I’m sure Dean has his own standards, parameters, etc. But for myself, it should be something that draws me in, swirls me around and spews me out with a smile. That’s the closest description I have for a good story.

For this anthology, the main consideration was that it should have the element of the secondary fantasy world. The concept of the secondary world should be believable AND real, i.e. it’s not just the imagining of the protagonist.

Having edited projects like this one in previous years, I think this gives you a better idea of what the sf/f field looks like in the Philippines. Would you share some of your insights. (comparing perhaps what it was like in the beginning as compared to today).

Dean: When I edited the first Philippine Speculative Fiction annual, things were quite different. Today, more Filipino spec fic is being published both locally and abroad. Academe is open to genre fiction where before only Realism was considered valid literature – there are college courses on speculative fiction now and papers being written. In the literary workshops, fantasy and scifi are being accepted and discussed, and the discourse is exciting. Speculative fiction has won prestigious awards such as the Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature and the Philippines Free Press Award. More people are writing, and with ebooks, more material is being published.

Joey: From what I remember (though the timeline in my head may be incorrect), one of the reasons I wanted to set up an online anthology series then was the fact that I wanted to open up another market for local spec fic. Dean’s PSF series had been consistent throughout the years but the other outlets had started to drop. Kenneth Yu had stopped publishing the print edition of the Digest of Philippine Genre Stories (before he decided to bring it online), the giant-sized Story Magazine seemed to have evaporated, and the Fully-Booked graphic/fiction contests had finally run out of gas.

Alas, like those efforts, I found out that it’s hard to keep something like that running for so long. (Which is why props to Dean for PSF.) Nowadays, I still feel that there’s a dearth of markets for writers to submit their works. Philippine Graphic is still alive but unfortunately Free Press is also gone. Dean and Sarge have the upcoming Volume, yes, but I presume this will be a yearly thing.

On the writing side, I feel there are a lot of untapped writers out there as evidenced by some relatively new names in these anthos. Personally, I’m glad that I was able to give these writers the publishing space that they need. (Of course, more new writers mean more new stories and more ways to tell stories.)

What do you feel are the biggest obstacles for sf/f writers in the Philippines?

Dean: We need to create more venues of publication and better ways of marketing the books. We need to publish on two fronts – in print as well as digitally, to reach more people. We need to promote Filipino works of sf/f and get more people more excited to read their own. We need more anthologies in non-English languages of the Philippines, and we need to go broader with genres.

Joey: Right now, I think the biggest block to aspiring writers is the need to actually write their stories and submit them to publications. Or if they can’t find outlets, maybe they should create them in the same way I did. Yes, there’s not much respect or money in publishing your story in your blog. But it’s not the venue but the decision to act, the decision to write it down where someone else can read it. That’s what matters.

As writers, what are the biggest challenges that you face?

Dean: For the average young writer, the challenges are same as the ones more experienced writers face: crafting a well-written story and finding a market for it.

Joey: I love creating these anthologies. Unfortunately, I can see why there’s a certain dichotomy between editors and writers: editing books take time, and this takes me away from writing my own stories. So I have to choose: be an editor or be a writer. I know there are some editors who are also writers (or writers who are also editors). Kelly Link and Jeff Vandermeer come to mind. But I can’t do both; I’m not as good as they are, either as a writer or editor.

We hope that you’ve enjoyed reading this feature on process. The Farthest Shore and Diaspora Ad Astra are soon available from UP Press. The Speculative Fiction Anthologies and Dean Alfar’s books are available from Amazon.com. You can also look for them at Flipreads. Joseph Nacino’s Logovore, which won the Philippine Graphic competition is available online at Fantasy Magazine.

On twitter, Dean is @DeanAlfar and Joseph Nacino is @banzai_cat

**Let us know what you think of this feature. Please leave a comment or write us at chieandweng at gmail dot com. Thank you for reading.